I Need You
by Elizabeth L. Sullivan
Summary: It's been 1,582 days since Clarke last laid eyes on Bellamy, and for every single one of those days, she thinks about him, sketches him, misses him. Now that she has her radio, she calls him every night after Madi goes to bed, hoping he hears her. During this call, she realizes more than she thought she would. A Bellarke oneshot that may turn into more


She sat on the floor of her tiny home. Black residue from her charcoal smeared across her palms. A faint black smudge rested on the side of her face from where she had rubbed her eye.

Clarke looked out the busted window to see nothing but the pure darkness of the night. Her eyes fell back down to the small lantern beside her that illuminated the small area of the room in which she sat.

She knew by now that her ten-year-old child was sound asleep, and this was her time to herself. She didn't get much alone time with Madi around. They were the only two people left on the planet except for those trapped in the bunker; so, to rephrase that, they were the only two people on the surface of this radioactive planet.

She finished sketching to the best of her memory, of the way his wild curls rested against his forehead in the moment she first saw him, _if the air is toxic, we're all dead, anyway._

She set her current sketch beside her on the floor with the other nine or so, all of which were of him. Her other sketches of her family and friends were stacked in a makeshift folder and tucked away in a pile of her things.

Pulling out another sheet of paper, Clarke contemplated her next memory of him to sketch. How could she possibly sketch the way she felt the moment she realized he had come to rescue her from Roan? If only there were a way to sketch the feeling of his arms wrapped around her after Mount Weather or the way his skin felt when she pressed her lips against his cheek.

Why was she thinking of him in this sense? Was she craving human touch or only his touch?

She placed the paper down and stood up. Walking out into the dark, she made her way over to the rover. She lifted the lantern to the back of the rover and pulled out the radio.

Was she a fool for doing this every night? Was he even alive?

Clarke lifted her body up onto the hood of the rover and lifted the radio to her lips. Her thumb pressed down against the button to speak.

"Bellamy, if you can hear me, if you're alive, it's been over four years. More specifically, it's been 1,582 days since I last saw you. How many more until I see you again? You told me once that you'll always have hope as long as you're breathing. I'm trying so hard to have hope here, but how can I, if I don't know if you're even breathing right now? I don't hardly know how to have hope anymore because you are my hope, but you're not here."

To fight the impending tears, Clarke pressed her eyelids together, and one single tear rolled down her cheek. She looked up at the billions of stars and wondered which star was actually the ring. Did she succeed? We're they even alive?

She wiped her eyes.

"I've come to this realization tonight that, uh, most my sketches are of you and my memories of us, that all of my hopeless radio calls are addressed to you and that all of my thoughts are consumed by you. Why? I have no clue. All I want is to see you, to talk to you, to touch you. Would it be so bad to want that?

I realized something else today, too. I need you, Bellamy. Don't get me wrong. I've known I've needed you all along. I knew that I needed you when we started out as co-leaders, when we were up against the mountain, when I was in the City of Light.

But this need is different.

I almost gave up on life, on everyone, on you. Then I found Madi, but I need you now too. I need you to tell me I'm not doing a terrible job at raising her. I need you to hold me because I'm scared. I need you because I need to stop missing you. I can't breathe; I can't sleep without thinking of you.

And Madi—she's a pretty smart girl, and she seems to think it's because I have feelings for you. I laughed when she first suggested it. Not because the idea of it was silly, but because it was partially true. I distanced myself from you when Lexa told me that love was weakness.

And now that I look back, I think I believed her because I did feel that way about you at the time, but I chose to put those feelings aside to bring our people home. Then things kept happening, and I realize now that, Lexa, she was wrong. Love isn't weakness. It's strength. It's what's keeping me alive."

Clarke looked up at the sky once more and inhaled nervously before she admitted her next three words.

"I love you, Bell, and I think I've loved you all along. I just can't believe it took the end of the world to realize that I am, in fact, deeply in love with you."


End file.
